


Home Again

by leiascully



Series: All The Choices We've Made [5]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-20 08:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16133924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Mulder and Scully investigate a mysterious murder in Philadelphia as Scully deals with her mother's failing health.  (Reinterpretation compliant with Visitor/Resident)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Replaces "Home Again" in its original shooting order  
> A/N: Listen, I called my chapter of Visitor "Home" long before "Home Again" aired. I'm keeping the title.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

When the phone in the office rings, it takes them both by surprise. Scully reaches for the receiver. "Agent Scully," she says.

"Agent Scully, this is Detective Villanueva from the Philadelphia police," says the voice on the other end of the phone. "I was asked to contact you by one of other other detectives.I understand that you and Agent Mulder take unusual cases." 

"We've been known to," Scully allows. Mulder raises an eyebrow at her. "Our department, the X-Files, specializes in what some might term unexplained phenomena. We do our best to provide that explanation."

"Well, we've got a weird one," says Detective Villanueva. "Something happened last night to an employee of the local office of Housing and Urban Development. The FBI up here recommended we call you. I'll email a copy of the file so far."

"We'll see you in a few hours," Scully says, and hangs up.

"So?" Mulder says.

"That was the Philadelphia PD," Scully tells him. "Sounds like something strange is afoot."

"You ever seen the Liberty Bell?" he asks.

"Yes," she says. "With you. Sometime in 1993, if I recall correctly." She looks at him and has an inexplicably vivid memory of the way he threw his jacket over his shoulder as they climbed out of the car, like they were heading to a photoshoot instead of a crime scene.

"Well, you can't ever get enough liberty," Mulder tells her.

"Our first X-File in nearly fifteen years," she says, leaning toward him. "If you don't count that time with the priest."

"I don't," he says. "That wasn't an X-File so much as it was a fiasco."

"Well," she tells him, "I'm a great believer in redemption."

"Me too," he says, looking at her with those eyes that remember everything and still hope for the best.

They take the train to Philadelphia. Scully prefers it to driving. Maybe she's been run off the road by unmarked black SUVs too many times. It doesn't escape her mind that the same people who've done that could nudge the train off the tracks, but it feels like there's safety in numbers. Plus, it gives her a chance to read the file without traffic to distract her.

"So what's the deal, Scully?" Mulder asks, stretching his legs out. All these years later, he still looks incredible in a suit, and he still takes up all the available space and then some. He leans over her shoulder to peer at the folder.

"A HUD agent died under mysterious circumstances," Scully says, glancing over the details.

"Our first bonafide X-File back on the beat," Mulder says with relish. "Feels good. Feels organic. Doesn't it?"

"Mulder, a man may have been murdered," she chides him, but it doesn't have much bite in it.

"We may bring his killer to justice," he says, clearly enjoying himself. "Doesn't some part of you feel excited about this, Scully?"

"In a grim sort of way," she allows. 

"The thrill of the chase," he whispers. "The way the pieces come together." 

She turns her face into his. "What do you want me to say?" she murmurs. "That even now, I still feel like I did when we were young and it was just the two of us trying to find a lever long enough to move the world?"

"That's exactly what I want, Scully," he murmurs back.

"I do," she says. "God, my therapist is going to scold me."

"You deserve it," he teases. 

"I'll have her tell yours too," she says. 

He grins at her, and she sees the memory of the man he was when they met. She loves that man, and the man he is now. Their journey has been long and strange and painful, but this feels enough like the promised land that she can relax into it a little. She can't look at him anymore or she'll start kissing him on the train, and that's too much. They're on the clock. They've got to keep it as professional as they've ever been able to. She looks down at the file again.

"According to this transcript, he called 911 to to report an intruder in the HUD building. But after his initial contact, he said nothing. Time of death seems to indicate that he died around the time of the call." 

"What did the police say?" Mulder asks.

"Not much," Scully says. 

"What else is new," Mulder says, stretching up to click the reading light on and off.

"Mulder, stop," she says indulgently. 

"The light or the insightful critique of Philadelphia's finest?" he asks.

"Both," she says. 

That's the downside of not driving: Mulder doesn't have anything to occupy his attention. She reaches up and catches at his sleeve to pull his arm down. He looks down at her and she hands him the file. 

"See for yourself," she says.

"I like it when you read it," he says, pouting a little. 

"I miss your slideshows," she says, and is surprised that she means it. There was a certain charm to the fact that he took the time to prepare them. Only Mulder could concoct such an esoteric courting ritual. 

"If that's what gets you hot, I'll dig out the film," he says, and then something in the file catches his eye and he's suddenly deep into the case, tapping his lip with one finger. 

The rest of the ride to Philadelphia is uneventful. Scully sips at her coffee and watches Mulder's mind work. The local FBI agents pick them up at the train station and take them to requisition their own vehicle. At least Scully doesn't have to worry that Mulder doesn't have enough to keep himself occupied. They pull up at the HUD office. The tires of the SUV scrape the curb as he parallel parks. Scully feels her shoulders straighten as she steps out of the vehicle. The weight of the badge in her blazer pocket is as comforting as the cross around her neck and the ring on her finger. 

"You ready, Agent Scully?" Mulder asks, adjusting his jacket.

"Let's go," she says, eyeing him up and down. 

The building looks like nothing happened until they get to the man's office. Cutler's office, Scully reminds herself. There's glass everywhere and a bloody footprint in the middle of the floor. She and Mulder flip open their IDs in sync as they approach the young black tech who's documenting the scene. 

"I'm Special Agent Dana Scully," she says, "and this is Special Agent Fox Mulder."

The tech on the floor looks up at their badges. "Detective?" 

An older black man in a trench coat looks over and detaches himself from another conversation. He strides across the room. "How are you doing? I'm Aaron Dross. I called the Bureau. They said you two have experience with these, um...spooky cases." 

Scully can sense Mulder shifting next to her. "Spooky" still hits a nerve, evidently. He puts his hands on his hips. 

Dross shrugs. "I'm not trying to be confrontational here, agents, but, uh…."

"It wouldn't be Philadelphia without a certain degree of confrontation, right?" Mulder cracks. 

Dross frowns. "Look, all I'm saying is just because I called for a hand doesn't mean I'm looking to pass this investigation to you."

Mulder's eyebrows quirk. Scully manages not to smirk or roll her eyes at his alpha male posturing. That part of working together she didn't really miss. Mulder gazes at the bloody footprint. Scully crosses her arms.

"I'm sure I don't have to point it out to you, Detective, that the FBI has jurisdiction over the murder of a federal employee," she says.

"Have you tried polyvinal siloxane to try to life the print?" Mulder asks the tech.

The tech sighs. "It's not that I can't lift a print, it's just...there's no prints to life. This is definitely a footprint here, but there are no ridges."

Scully frowns and tilts her head; Dross does the same. Scully squats beside Mulder and the tech. The footprint is just a bloody smear. It looks generally human. There's no reason there shouldn't be a print. There are slight irregularities in the distribution of the blood, just as she'd expect there to be, but something about it does look smooth.

"Well, it looks like this person was born without footprints," Mulder drawls. "Which is impossible by the way." It's clearly an aside to Dross, but Mulder just keeps gazing at the footprint. Scully looks up at Dross. 

"Where was the victim found?" she asks.

"He's still here," Dross says.

Scully glances around. There's no visible corpse. She puts her hands on her knees and stands up. Dross walks toward Cutler's desk. 

"He's there," he says, and points. Scully peers around. There's a bloody torso lying behind the desk. Just a trunk, no head or arms. She pulls a pair of gloves out of her pocket. 

"And, uh, here." Dross points to a waste basket near his feet. "Just his head."

Mulder's still crouched near the footprint. "Not even in the proper recycling bin."

No, she hasn't really missed the oneupsmanship. 

Dross doesn't miss a beat. "Both arms are gone too. Could have been a sword or a machete."

Scully examines the torso. The edges of the wounds are messy. Not the work of a blade. The muscle fibers are stretched, frayed. It's consistent all around. She rises slowly. "The supraspinatus and the deltoideus appear to be shredded from the torso, not severed, as do the other points of separation."

"So what are you telling me?" Dross asks. "He was pulled apart?"

Scully purses her lips. "Well, I don't think that would be possible for a single human being."

Mulder stands up. He wanders around the office, looking at everything, and stops by the window. Over his shoulder, she sees a graffiti mural. From where she stands, it's just a humanoid smudge, a dark scar on a blank billboard. He stares at it.

Dross approaches him. "You know, the homeless out there, they hated this guy. Hated. They hated Cutler. They see him as a reason for them having to relocate out to the old Franklin Hospital. Can't say he was ever nice about it. Turned the hose on people. Called it street cleaning, like they were trash."

Scully's phone rings and she takes it out. For a moment, she thinks the display just says William, but then it lights up again, and it's William Scully, Jr. A joke of sorts. He's always been Bill in her phone. Matthew changed it last time she saw him. Tara smiled and shrugged and said that he was just at that stage where he felt nicknames were childish. Scully looked at her brother and understood. She looks at Mulder. He's still looking out the window.

"When a medieval prisoner was drawn and quartered, it took four horses charging off in different directions at full speed to tear him apart," he tells Dross.

Scully's phone rings again. She accepts the call.

"Bill, I'm at a crime scene," she says. "Is everything okay? Are you still in Germany?"

"You have to get to the hospital right now," Bill says hoarsely. "It's Mom. Beatus Medical Center. Whatever you're doing, just...just get there. She had a heart attack."

"Okay," she says, numb. "Okay."

Mulder turns. "Scully?" Her name as watchword. Her name as shibboleth. She stares at him. 

"That was," she starts, "that was, uh, my brother. He just...the EMTs found his phone number. Uh, my mom's just had a heart attack. She's in ICU in DC."

"Go," Mulder says immediately, tossing her the keys.

"Yeah," she says. Her hands don't even sting from the impact of the sharp keys. She turns as she leaves, looking briefly back at him. Mulder gazes at her. She nods and goes, strengthened. 

Mulder watches her go. His gaze slides up her back and keeps going as she disappears from sight. There's a security camera above the doorframe. Something about it looks strange. He moves closer, peering at it. It's clear the camera has been twisted, moved away from its intended vantage point. 

"Can we take a closer look at this?" Mulder says, dragging a chair over. He steps onto it and examines the camera, his fingertips hovering close to it but not touching it. 

Dross stands underneath with his hands on his hips. "What is it?"

"This camera's been moved," Mulder says. 

"Where was it supposed to cover?" Dross asks.

"Not sure," Mulder tells him. He turns on the chair, swiveling through the possible perspectives. The billboard catches his eye. The graffiti is compelling somehow: a man in a trenchcoat, dark features smudged but evocative. 

"Can we look at the footage?" Mulder asks.

"I'm on it," Dross says. 

Twenty minutes later, they're in the office, watching the recordings. The screen shows multiple feeds.

"Here are the four mounted security cameras," Mulder says, tapping the screen with one finger. "There's the first one knocked out of position. Then the second one. And the third. And I saw that Cutler's was knocked out. But Cutler's eye-line is trained above the door, about Tim Duncan height. We can eliminate any 76ers, 'cause those guys can't find the rim."

Dross grunts, either in agreement or exasperation. Mulder smirks to himself and then frowns. There's no point in playing the antagonist anymore. He's not in his thirties, a self-styled outcast. If he falls back into his old patterns, he's just retracing his steps down a path he doesn't want to follow anymore. He focuses his attention on the screen again as the footage rolls forward, compressing hours into seconds. Dross slows it down as the cameras get pushed out of alignment by an unseen force and then rewinds a few moments and pauses. They peer at the screens together, examining every detail of the scene of the crime in the moments before the murder. The billboard catches both their attention and they lean forward together. 

"Look at that," Dross says. "The billboard outside Cutler's office."

"At the time of the murder, there's no artwork on it at all. No graffiti. Nothing." Mulder puts his hands on his hips. 

"So what's our timeframe?" Dross says. "It wasn't there last night. It's sure as hell there now."

"That street art was put up this morning," Mulder says. "After Cutler's murder. Maybe the artist who put it up there is saying something. Maybe they saw something. I'm gonna see if it's signed or if anybody knows who made it."

"Yeah," Dross says. "Artist like that, maybe they've got a reputation."

"At least they've got an interesting perspective," Mulder agrees. 

"I'll have my guys ask around," Dross says. 

"Thanks," Mulder says. "And for the record, the Knicks can't find the rim either."

"You got that right," Dross says. They nod at each other. 

"Thanks for bringing us on," Mulder says.

"Thanks for coming," Dross says. "Seems like a weird one."

"That's our specialty," Mulder says. "The spookier, the better." It doesn't taste bitter in his mouth this time. "Let's find whoever's responsible for that graffiti and figure out just what else might have been in their artistic vision."


	2. Chapter 2

Scully parks at the hospital and doesn't remember the drive. She'll reimburse the Bureau for the mileage, or take whatever consequences they want to give her for borrowing the vehicle. She's just lucky she didn't get a speeding ticket on the way back. She flashes her badge at the reception desk and demands to see her mother. The nurses point her the right way and let her go. She must look like a woman on a mission. She finds the cardiac ward easily enough and she sees her mother immediately. God, she looks so small. Margaret Scully is dwarfed by the ventilator next to her bed. She picks up her mother's chart and flips through it, but she's too distracted to process the information on it. Her mother had a heart attack: she understands that much, and that it was worse than the last one. Her mother's heart has sustained a lot of damage over the years that isn't on the chart. Scully goes and takes her mother's hand, leaning down to stroke Maggie's forehead with the other hand. 

"Mom," she says tenderly. 

A nurse catches sight of her and walks over, trying to look both nonchalant and on patrol. "Are you related to Margaret?" she says in the intensive care voice Scully doesn't want to hear. Her nametag says "Taillie".

"Yes, I'm her daughter," Dana says. "I'm Dana Scully. Has there been any improvement in her condition?"

Nurse Taillie nods. "She regained consciousness for a few moments about an hour ago. She repeatedly asked for someone named Charlie?"

"Charlie...Charlie's my brother," Scully says. "Her youngest son. We, uh, we haven't seen him for a few years."

"Estranged?" Nurse Taillie says compassionately. 

"I wouldn't say estranged," Scully hedges. "Just...we haven't spoken in a while."

"Oh," Nurse Taillie says. Scully can hear her skepticism. "I thought you'd want to know."

"She didn't ask for me, or...or Bill?" Scully asks. "Or her grandchildren?"

Nurse Taillie shakes her head. "Just Charlie." She glances around. "I've got other patients to check on, but press the button if you need me."

"Thank you," Scully says. Her mother is all she can see. She watches the rise and fall of her mother's chest, so perfectly regular that it's upsetting. Something deep inside her needs that irregularity. Like the bloody footprint in Philadelphia, too smooth to be convincingly human, her mother's breathing is alien. She wonders if her mother and Melissa sat by her bed this way when she was returned. She's certain they did. She wishes she could remember what they said to her then, what kind of lifeline they threw to her as she drifted between life and death. 

Last time this happened, she fled. After the crisis moment was over, she ran to the beach. She isn't running now. If her father and Melissa are anywhere, they're with her. They're with Maggie. 

"Hi, Mom," she says in a voice that shakes a little. "It's me, Dana. I'm here. I've been where you are. I know that Ahab is there. And Melissa. But Mom, I"m here. Bill Jr.'s here. And William. William's here. And Charlie...Charlie's here, Mom. Please, Mom, don't go home yet. I need you." She rests her head on the bed next to her mother's shoulder. "I need you so much." 

Over a hundred miles away, Mulder walks out of the security office and wanders back up to Cutler's office. The billboard catches his eye again, perfectly framed in the window. He stands and contemplates it for a long few minutes. The outline of the figure is rough, but it's evocative. It's watching, he thinks. As he turns away from it, the back of his neck prickles. He ignores that and moves toward the door. Something pale catches his eye. He bends down, taking a nitrile glove out of his pocket. It's an adhesive bandage of some kind, folded in half. He scrunches the glove over it and tugs at the material to make a little bundle of it with the bandage inside. So far, besides the footprint, it's all he has. The rest of the HUD building is strangely clean as he moves through it. Maybe there's some kind of clean desk initiative the Bureau hasn't picked up yet. He props his hands on his hips and gazes up at the building across the way. The billboard is on the roof. Is he young and crafty enough to find his own way up? He doesn't have Scully around to impress at the moment with any kind of display of boyish agility. He's not sure his knees would handle a clamber up a ladder anyway. 

As he's standing there contemplating his potential avenues of access, he hears the sound of argument from around the corner. He wanders toward the noise, purposefully casual. 

"Landry, I'm not finished with you," shouts a woman. She and the man who is presumably Landry are both white, middle-aged, well-dressed. Not the type that would usually scream at each other on a weekday afternoon in the middle of the street, Mulder assumes. 

Landry holds up his hands. "Look, this street gets cleaned out tomorrow morning. You know the schedule as well as I do."

"Not after I get an injunction," the woman says. "This street is a crime scene, and the people you're trying to 'clean out' might be witnesses, or even suspects." 

Landry looks taken aback. "Are you blaming these poor people for Joseph's murder? These people have nothing. They might not have been his biggest fans, but they're not his killers."

"Doesn't his murder convince you how much these people hate what you're doing to them?" the woman demands. "Who says it stops with Cutler?"

"Are you threatening me?" Landry asks, taking a step forward.

"I've been threatening you for six months," the woman says with venom in her voice. 

"Well, stop," Landry says. "I'm not the villain here."

Mulder saunters up to them. "And who are these two find representatives of the City of Brotherly Love? A little outdated to call it brotherly, I guess. Sibling-style love is more in the style of the times, though I guess siblings argue plenty."

"Who wants to know?" the woman asks.

Mulder flips out his badge. "Special Agent Mulder, FBI." He waits, smiling.

"Daryl Landry," says Landry. "I'm...I was working with Joseph Cutler. We were working on redeveloping this area."

"Redeveloping sounds a little euphemistic," Mulder says. "And you, ma'am? You seem to have strong feelings about the issue."

"Nancy Huff," says the woman. "I'm the president of the Central Bucks County school board. And this...jerk and Cutler are moving too fast with this neighborhood."

"Jerk," Mulder says, nodding. "That does sound like siblings."

"We're not related," Huff declares. "He and Cutler have been pushing the homeless population out of this area in order to build a ten-story apartment building. They're trying to gentrify this neighborhood at super-speed and make all their problems someone else's responsibility." 

Landry scoffs. "The old Franklin State Hospital is in her school district, just sitting there empty. We're taking these poor people out of the downtown area, where they're creating a nuisance, to a facility where they can be away from the drugs, the rats, and the urine in the streets as well as the customers and the people working in this area."

"Listen," says Huff, "I want these people to be safe and comfortable as much as anyone. I come down here every Thanksgiving with my own family and serve turkey dinners."

"But?" Mulder says.

"Agent Mulder, the Franklin Hospital is two blocks from Pennsbury High School. If these people are so involved in drugs and if, as Mr. Landry believes, one of them may have murdered Joseph Cutler, would you want them moved near your children? The elementary buses drop off at the high school, and the students are vulnerable. They'll want to help, and their charitable instincts might be taken advantage of." 

"That would be a shame," Mulder says dryly. "Given that high school students are so notoriously charitable. It sounds like both of you are claiming to speak for the local homeless population, but really, you're afraid they'll lower your property values, and you're afraid they'll ask for your children's lunch money." Huff and Landry have the grace to look somewhat abashed. "So who speaks for them?" 

Someone clears their throat nearby. All three of them look over. There's a man in dirty clothes. His dark skin is smudged and his dreadlocks look dusty. He's leaning on a dumpster, watching them. He waits until he's certain he has their attention, and then he points to the billboard with its graffitied figure. 

"Who speaks for us?" he asks. "The Band-Aid Nose Man." 

Mulder turns on his heel and approaches the man. "Band-Aid Nose Man? Is that the name of the artist? The painting?" He thinks of the bandage bundled into his pocket. The man shrugs. "The artist - you know where I can find them?"

The man shrugs again. 

Mulder looks up at the billboard, hoping some kind of signature will have appeared. The figure is gone. The billboard is blank. Mulder looks back, but the homeless man is gone. He takes his phone out. Scully hasn't called. He taps on his contacts and his finger hovers over her name. No, he decides. He won't disturb her. She'll call when she's ready. 

\+ + + + 

Scully isn't ready. She's still holding her mother's hand. She rubs her forehead with the other hand, trying to ease her headache. She remembers, distantly, the pressure of Mulder's hand around hers, and his voice, hollow and far-away, saying, "I don't know if my being here will help bring you back...but I'm here." Her eyes sting. She turns away, blinking the tears away. There's an envelope on the table beside her mother's bed. The label says "Margaret Scully 171927". She wonders briefly about the significance of the number, how this hospital catalogues its patients, what software they use. It's just her brain trying to find something else to think about. 

She lets go of her mother's hand and picks up the envelope. It rattles gently as she lifts it. She opens the envelope and tips the contents into her palm: two gold rings and a coin on a chain. The rings are as familiar to her as her mother's face is. She can't remember her mother without the gleam of the rings. They glint like the one on her own hand. It's strange that gold, so malleable and soft, should be the metal that promises eternity, but fantasy never considers the reality of the situation. She sets down the rings. Her mother's hands are swollen; it would hurt force the rings back over her knuckles. The coin on the chain is a mystery. Scully holds it up to the light. It looks ordinary. It's set into a thick rim that's attached to the chain, but she doesn't see anything else significant about it. The date doesn't bring back any memories. It looks like it was minted in Denver like so many other coins. 

Her phone buzzes from the table. It's Bill. She fumbles for it, dropping the coin into her lap.

"Hey, Bill," she says. "What time is your flight from Frankfurt?" She calculates in her head. Germany is seven hours ahead, she thinks. 

"I'm on my way to the airport now," he says. "I'm hoping to get on a standby flight. If not, I've got one booked for tomorrow. How's Mom?"

Scully gazes at her mother and hesitates. "I think you should get here as soon as you can."

"I'm doing my best, Dana." His voice sounds strained. "Is she dying?"

"I can't..." she begins. "How am I to know that?"

"Is she going to die before I get there?" he says urgently. "The flight is eight hours, give or take, and it won't take off for at least two hours."

"I can't answer that," she tells him. "There's no way I can answer that."

"Are you a doctor or aren't you?" Bill says louder. "Look at her charts or something, Dana. Figure it out. Christ, I'm doing my best to get there. I just need you to tell me if she's going to hold on."

"I am a doctor, Bill," she says, "but it's not that simple. No one can predict what will happen. She seems stable for the moment, but she's on a ventilator. You need to be prepared for the worst."

He swears. 

"We'll keep her on life support," Scully says. "That's...that's what she wanted. We talked about it after...after my experience in a coma."

"That was a long time ago," Bill says. "You don't know what she wants know."

"She wants us to do everything she can to keep her alive," Scully says fiercely. "And that's what I'm doing. It's what I'll continue to do for as long as it takes."

"Fine," Bill says. 

"Her advance directive is on the Living Will Registry," Scully snaps. "You can check for yourself. I'd forward you the document, but I don't have access to my computer at the moment."

"And where's Mulder in all of this?" Bill demands. "Looming over her like he did when you were sick?" He doesn't say 'dying'. They both know she was dying. 

"He's in Philadelphia, working the case I left this morning," Scully says. "Exactly where he's supposed to be."

"As long as he stays out of it," Bill grumbles. 

Scully says nothing. She's furious and so, so sad that she's shaking in the hospital chair. The coin on her lap shivers, the links of the chain shifting into new patterns.

Bill sighs. "Listen, I'll be there as soon as I can. Tara sends her love. Just call me if anything changes, okay?"

"I will," Scully says. 

She hangs up and sits staring at her phone screen for a moment. Almost without any conscious thought, she clicks her contacts and calls Mulder.

"Scully," he says as soon as he picks up, and it sounds like a prayer. "How's your mom?"

"She's unconscious," Scully says, and her voice shakes. "But she's, uh, stable. For now. How's the case?"

"You don't want to hear about the case," he says, and she can tell just from the shifts in his voice that he's glancing around, measuring and cataloging everything with those eyes that seem on some other spectrum. 

"I could use the distraction," she tells him. "Any suspects yet?"

He sighs. "The Band-Aid Nose Man."

She bites her lip. "That sounds about right," she says carefully.

"The graffiti disappeared," he offers.

"That's something," she says. 

"I wish I were there," he tells her. 

"There's nothing to do here," she says. "All I can do is wait for her to wake up."

"I know what that feels like," he tells her. "Hold on, Scully."

"I will," she says.

"Should I come down?" Mulder asks.

"No," she says, "no. Bill's getting on a plane. He'll be here in a few hours."

"Send him my love," Mulder says in a voice that rasps with irony.

"I will," she says. 

He hangs up. The white light of the lab glares down on the bandage, unbundled from its nitrile cocoon. The techs have put it in a Petri dish and sent it through every machine they've got. Mulder slumps onto a bench and crosses his arms, pursing his lips as he looks at Jack Budd, who has his gloved hands in the pockets of his lab coat.

"So you're telling me it's completely clean?" Mulder asks.

Budd shrugs. "There's nothing here. Sorry." 

"You can confirm that there's no presence of any pathogenic agents? No blood? No DNA?" Mulder pushes himself up. 

"Agent Mulder, there's literally nothing on this bandage that we can identify. I mean, you can see it. It looks like there's something there. I used backscattered electron imaging to separate and identify inorganic particles from organic particles, and I didn't find either one. There's no organic material on this bandage. There's also no inorganic material. Whatever it is isn't something I understand how to classify."

"In terms of what?" Mulder says.

"Look, in simplest terms, organic means it is or was living," Budd says. "Carbon-based, all that stuff. Inorganic would mean non-living. Whatever that material is on the bandage can't be identified by our technology as either one."

"So you're saying this is Schrodinger's Band-Aid?" Mulder jokes.

Budd shrugs. "Call it what you want." He squints. "I'd go with Heisenberg, though. It's more unmeasurable than it is unknowable."

Mulder shakes his head. "Everyone's a critic." He thinks of Scully with a pang. He shouldn't be here. He should be with her. She told him not to come, but he remembers the last time Maggie was in the hospital, how Scully held it together right up to the moment she didn't. He's always been the one with tells.

"Look," he says to Budd, "let me know if you figure anything else out."

"Will do," Budd tells him. "It's the damnedest thing, that's all I know."

"Not even in the top ten weirdest things I've seen in this job," Mulder tells him. "But figure it out and maybe I'll bump it up the list."

"I want your job," Budd breathes, and Mulder waves as he leaves the lab. He checks his phone. No updates from Scully. He puts his phone back in his pocket.


	3. Chapter 3

Scully spends the night at home. The hospital's visiting hours don't last all night, and she doesn't want to antagonize the staff by insisting. It's strange now to sleep without Mulder. She wakes up in the night reaching for him. Her fingers brush the cool empty pillow. She checks her phone instead. There's a good night text, but nothing more. She can't message him; it's late, and he's probably busy with the case. She knows how he works. He does all his best thinking in the dark. She's benefited from that more times than she can count. 

She rolls over and tries to sleep again. Every time she opens her eyes, she remembers seeing Ahab's spirit in the living room of her old apartment. She is afraid, every single time, that she will see her mother's spirit instead.

As soon as the hospital will allow her, she's back at her mother's bedside. Her mother is still lying there, tiny and still. Margaret's chart seems to make more sense today. A cardiac event. A heart weakened by a previous cardiac event. Scully hangs the chart back on its hook. She knows, somewhere in her mind, that if she read this information on a stranger's chart, she would give them long odds of recovering. But it's her mother. Her mother's a quiet fighter. She held the family together through years of Ahab being at sea, years of the tensions and politics of base housing. 

Scully kisses her mother's forehead and then fusses around her mother's bed, tidying away the envelope with her mother's rings and the coin on the chain. She touches the tubes from the IV bags with her fingertips, making sure they hang unencumbered and untangled. She checks the labels out of habit; people are always trying to give Mulder the wrong medications. Her eyes skate over the words "saline solution, 5%", and then she freezes. There's no reason that her mother should be receiving a hypertonic saline solution. It won't rehydrate her. The only reason Scully can imagine for the solution is that they're trying to resuscitate her mother enough to get her off the ventilator, and that doesn't make sense. Her mother needs more time to recover her strength. She needs rest. 

"Nurse?" she says as she sees Taillie approaching. "Is her doctor free? I'd like to speak with them about her treatment plan. I'm not sure it's wise to administer a hypertonic saline solution to a cardiac arrest patient, unless there's some use I'm unaware of."

"Agent Scully, we confirmed your mother's advance directive," Taillie says gently. "She revised it last year. It indicates that she not be resuscitated if unconscious or if she requires artificial respiration."

"I'd like to see the revision," Scully says in a voice that barely quivers. 

"I added a copy to her chart," Taillie says. She's using a compassionate, good-bedside-manner voice that makes Scully want to step on Taillie's foot with the very pointy heel of her shoe. 

Scully picks up the chart and flips through it again, paging through it so forcefully that she gives herself a papercut. The last page is the addendum to her mother's living will. It says exactly what Taillie told her. Both witnesses have naval ranks next to their signatures, with the notation (Ret.) in parentheses. Apparently her mother's old connections are still active. Maybe she thought that Scully and Bill would be more likely to respect her wishes. Every member of the Scully family grew up to respect the Navy before anything else. 

Scully lets the pages of the chart fall back into place. She looks at her mother. Maggie's eyes move under her eyelids. Her breath seems to hitch. 

"Mom?" Scully says, but there's no response. 

"Mom?" says a familiar voice behind her. Scully turns. It's Bill. He has tears in his eyes and he's twisting an old baseball cap in his hands, but his khakis haven't lost their crease, even on an international flight. He looks exhausted. 

"Bill," she says. "I didn't know you got in." 

"My flight was delayed," he says. "You didn't call."

"No," she says, ashamed. He always makes her feel this way, like the thoughtless little sister. This time, she deserves it. "It slipped my mind. Her condition hasn't changed. But they're administering a medication that might wake her up. She changed her will."

"I thought this might have happened," Bill says heavily. "She said something once. It doesn't matter."

"I asked to speak with her doctor," Scully says. "That's all we can do until...until she wakes up."

"It's good to see you, Dana," Bill says, and he opens his arms. She hugs him. He smells like recycled air and sweat and her father's cologne. 

"I'll give you some time with her," she says, and picks up the envelope. She wants to look at her mother's necklace again.

"Thanks," Bill says, sinking into the chair next to Maggie's bed. He takes her hand and presses it to his lips.

Scully slips away, heels echoing on the tiled floor. The hospital has a coffee shop, or at least a countertop where she can buy a coffee. She sits at a tiny rickety table and sips a scalding latte as she turns the coin over and over in her fingers. It still means nothing to her. The rim obscures the date. It looks like it might have been minted in 1964, which is the year of her birth - how tired was she earlier that it slipped her mind? - but she would expect her mother to be wearing something that represented all of them. At least Melissa, in memory. Not her. 

Her mother was asking for Charlie. She forgot, and she forgot to tell Bill. 

She doesn't really remember the last time she saw Charlie. It must have been at some family event - Christmas or Easter or someone's celebration. They've talked on the phone a few times a year, but he's never met Mulder. He didn't make Ahab's funeral or Melissa's. He never met William. 

Charlie is busy. She knows that. As an anthropologist, he works all over the world. He missed out on some of the Scullys' world traveling, being the baby, but apparently his interest was piqued, and his interest in languages keeps him in demand as a translator for some of his colleagues. He seems successful in his career, but she never knows where he is or if he's reachable. She touches his number in her phone, but the call goes to voicemail, the kind of message where it just reads off the number. She can't tell if it's still his. 

An email, then. She opens her app and composes a quick message letting him know that Maggie is in the hospital, that it's very serious, and that he should come if he can. "She's asking for you," she types. On impulse, she includes a photograph of the necklace. Maybe Charlie can make sense of it. Maybe whatever their mother needs resolved will strike some chord in him.

She sips at her coffee. It's finally cooled to the point of having any flavor again, but she'd rather too hot than too cold in the hospital. The milk tastes scalded, but she appreciates the caution. Through the windows of the ward door, she sees another figure standing by her mother's bed. She hurries in.

"We have to extubate her," someone explains to Bill. It's got to be the doctor. Scully marches up behind Bill's chair and glares.

"What does that mean, Doctor Colquitt?" Bill asks.

"They want to take her off the ventilator," Scully says. "Even though she can't breathe. She's not strong enough."

"It's not necessarily termination," the doctor says. "But we have to honor the law and your mother's wishes. I know this is difficult, but you have to believe it's what she wants. It's all there in the document."

Scully's phone rings. She glances at the screen. For a moment, she thinks again that it says "William", but when she blinks, it's just Mulder. She shields her phone from Bill's view and answers.

"Yeah," she says. Nothing to give her away.

"I'm here," he says, and she turns to see him gazing through the doors. 

"Do we have a choice?" Bill asks the doctor. He's slumped in the chair, rubbing his forehead. Dana recognizes her own attempt at stress relief.

"No," the doctor says, not without compassion. "I'm sorry. I know it's difficult."

"Come in," Scully says, and hangs up. Mulder pushes open the door.

"What's he doing here?" Bill asks, rising from the chair and turning.

"I asked him," Scully says. 

"You're back together with this guy?" Bill demands.

"He's my partner," Scully says. "In all things." She holds out her hand as Mulder approaches and he takes it. "That's something you're going to have to deal with, Bill."

"Nice to see you," Mulder says with a nod. He doesn't try to shake Bill's hand. "If it helps, I know how you feel."

"It doesn't help, and I really doubt that," Bill says, turning away. "Sorry, Doctor Colquitt. I don't want to have this discussion here."

"Bill," Scully says, "there's no discussion."

"I lost my mother," Mulder says. "More than fifteen years ago, but it still hurts."

"Did you have to watch her pulled off life support?" Bill demands.

"No," Mulder says. "She took her own life, as a matter of fact. While we were working a case in California. I never got to say goodbye."

Something in Bill thaws. He sits back down. "At least we have that chance."

"Bill," Scully says, "we need to call Charlie."

"Oh, yes, your mother asked for someone named Charlie," the doctor says. "It was about her only moment of clarity, unfortunately. Have you been able to contact him?"

"I emailed him," Scully says. "I'm not sure the number I have is current."

"I'll call him," Bill says wearily. 

"Have you spoken to him?" Scully demands. "Have you seen him?"

"Not recently," Bill says, "but I have his number."

"We don't have to perform the procedure immediately," the doctor says. "I have other patients to see. I can give you a few hours to discuss it, and to try to reach this person. But it does need to happen as soon as possible. Those were her wishes."

"I understand," Scully says. She feels hollowed out inside, like a dugout set adrift. She sits at the end of her mother's bed and squeezes her mother's feet with one hand. Doctor Colquitt nods and leaves.

Bill scrubs his hands over his face. "I need some sleep."

"Do you have a hotel?" Scully asks.

"Yeah, it's close," Bill says. "A nap. A shower. Some real food. I'll be back in a few hours."

"We'll hold down the fort," Mulder says, sitting in the chair Bill vacated. It's not his typical insouciant slump. He sits ramrod straight and attentive, surveying the machines hooked up around Maggie's bed as if he could extract some new piece of information from them.

"I thought you were on a case," Bill tells him, slightly less venom in his voice than usual.

"I took a personal day," Mulder says easily. "Supporting your sister is the most important work I could do right now. I've always liked and respected your mother."

"Yeah," Bill says. "She always liked you too." He shakes his head. "I can't even think straight."

"Go sleep," Scully says.

"Just for a couple of hours," Bill tells her. "I'll be back. Don't let it happen until I'm back." 

"I won't," Scully promises. 

Bill leaves, with one last glance over his shoulder, and Scully reaches for Mulder's hand again. 

"That went better than I thought it would," Mulder tells her.

"Yeah," she says.

"How is your mother?" Mulder asks.

Scully tips her head to the side and shrugs. "I don't think she's going to make it." It's the first time she's said it out loud. "Tell me about the case."

"Scully..."he says.

"No," she says. "Tell me about the case. It's our first X-File."

"I don't think that's what's important right now," he says.

"I want to work," she tells him. "If she wakes up, that will change, but for now. I need something to take my mind off this."

"Well," Mulder says, "our best suspect is someone called the Band-Aid Nose Man. I got that hot tip from a homeless man on the street when I was breaking up a fight between a school board president and a devotee of gentrification." 

"Hmm," she says.

"Apparently Cutler was trying to clean up the streets by any means necessary," Mulder says. "The developer wants to ship the entire homeless population to an old hospital, but school board president says it's next to the high school and she won't have it."

"I can see why she might be concerned," Scully says. 

"Teenagers are vulnerable," Mulder says.

"I'd be more worried for the homeless people," Scully says. "Teenagers can be vicious. I can't imagine the hospital isn't already a place they go on dares."

"I didn't think of it that way," Mulder says.

"That's why you keep me around," she says.

"I keep you around for a lot of reasons," he tells her, standing up. He pulls her gently off the bed and into his arms. She leans against his chest and listens to his heartbeat. "Also, the graffiti disappeared."

"Someone painted over it?" she asks.

"No," he tells her. "It vanished. There one minute, gone the next. I meant to go up on the roof to look for evidence, but then I had to play mediator. Oh, and I found a Band-Aid on the floor outside Cutler's office."

"A nose Band-Aid, surely," she murmurs.

"Whatever substance was on it could not be identified," he tells her, craning his head to look down at her. 

"I think they need better lab techs," Scully tells him. 

"It wasn't organic or inorganic," he says in that voice that's calculated to thrill.

"I'm sure was they said was that it wasn't identifiable as organic or inorganic," she says. "That's not the same thing."

"Same old Scully," he says fondly. 

"Someone has to keep you in check," she says. 

His phone buzzes. He reaches for it, checks it. "Dross," he says. 

"Take it," she tells him.

"Mulder," he says into the phone. "Uh huh. Okay. That's interesting. Thanks, I will."

He hangs up. "So the graffiti."

"It disappeared," she prompts. 

"Dross did some asking around," Mulder tells her. "The street artist that made the artwork goes by the name "Trashman". Nobody knows their real name. They stay anonymous - nobody's ever even seen the art go up. Apparently the local homeless people believe the Trashman defends them, or at least, the figure the artist depicts does."

"So your suspect is either a spraypainted golem or a person with suppurating mysterious facial wounds?" She leans back slightly.

"My suspect is a mission-oriented killer who believes they're helping the homeless by eliminating those involved with the relocation," he tells her. "Likely male, late twenties to middle-aged. The art's been a thing for years, apparently. That's a lot of cans and a lot of practice."

"If that's still happening, your suspect is likely to kill again," Scully says. "You have to go back to Philadelphia."

"I know," he says. "I want to be here."

"I know you do," she says. "I've got Bill. It'll be all right."

"And if it's not?" he asks quietly, carefully not looking at her mother.

"I'll call you," she says. "I can spend the time trying to contact Charlie."

"That's a good idea," he tells her.

"But why Charlie?" she asks, turning to gaze at her mother. "Not me, not even Bill, or...I don't even know where he is. He's barely spoken to us for years. Why would she do that?"

Mulder shakes his head. 

"And why would she change her living will without talking to me?" Scully asks. "Why wouldn't she want to give herself the chance?" She steps back from him and lifts the necklace so that he can see it. The chain is still wrapped around her hand. "And what's this? It was among her effects. I've never seen her wear it. I don't know if the date has any significance. What is it about a quarter, that quarter, that she would set it and wear it around her neck?" 

"I don't know," Mulder says. "But I do know you'll do your best to find out, and you'll do your best to make the right choices for her." 

Scully nods, unable to say anything else. Mulder leans down and kisses her cheek. She closes her eyes, feeling tears prickling behind her eyelids. 

"I just wish I could ask her a few more questions," she says. "Not even big questions, no family secrets. Even this necklace - it could all wait. I just want a chance to ask her about the little things. I know what song she wants played at her funeral, but I don't know what kind of flowers she wants. I don't know what she wants to wear. I...don't know how to do this without her."

Mulder kisses her again. "I'll call you later."

"Okay," she says, and sits down to wait.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time Mulder gets back to Philadelphia, he's got a voicemail from Dross asking him to come down to the HUD office. His voice sounds ominous. Mulder goes straight there in the requisitioned vehicle - he took the train back and picked up the SUV from their place. He's glad Scully at least had one night at home. Her mother looked too much like Scully did, after the abduction, during the cancer: a small form in a narrow bed, slipping a little further away with each breath. 

It's hard to find parking when he gets to the office. There are plenty of spots on the street, but they're obstructed by a lot of people and a battered school bus with the district name painted out. Mulder has to honk to get people to let them through, but finally, he joins Dross on the sidewalk.

"This is going to be rough," Dross says, nodding at the scene. Landry is motioning people onto the bus, which opens its doors with an unreassuring creak.

"All right," Landry says cheerfully. "Time to go to your new home! Everyone on the bus."

"I thought you needed a permit for fireworks," Mulder murmurs as Huff storms up, flourishing a paper. 

"Excuse me," she spits out in a loud voice. She's in a blouse and jeans instead of a suit this time, and she looks like she'd rather be home in her pajamas with a glass of wine. Hell hath no fury like a suburban mom. Landry tries to ignore her, ushering people up the steps of the bus. "Nobody else get on this bus. This is over."

"This isn't really any of your affair," Landry says with a pained grin.

"I won't thank you for trying to tell me what is and isn't my business in my district," Huff says. "This is an injunction against this operation, Landry, and I had to call my friend the judge away from her favorite sitcom to get it, so you know how frustrated she'll be if I have to go back and ask again. She's a proud member of our PTO and her kids are on the honor roll, and if any of these buses show up at Franklin Hospital, they'll be turned away by Bucks County sheriffs."

"Is that necessary?" Landry says. 

"I believe it is," Huff says. "If you didn't know what you're doing is wrong, would you be sneaking people onto a bus in the middle of the night?"

"It's a convenient time," Landry tells her. "People are gathered together. It doesn't cause as many traffic problems. This is efficiency, not subterfuge."

"Whatever it is, it's not happening," Huff tells him. A few of the homeless people are glancing back and forth between them. "Not now and not ever. I will do whatever it takes to protect our children, Mr. Landry."

"It's not us that's the problem," says one of the homeless people, somewhere in the crowd. Mulder can't pick them out, but it was a deeper voice, probably a man. "We're hurting. We're not the ones making people hurt."

"I'm sure that's true," Huff says, "but the fact remains that nobody is going to that hospital tonight or any night."

"I can talk to judges too," Landry calls after her as she walks away. "You can't stand in the way of this forever!"

Huff just stalks off. Mulder looks around. The homeless people are milling around, some still on the bus. Landry looks confused and tired. He slowly motions people to get off the bus.

"I thought we were goin' somewhere," says one of them as she comes down the stairs. 

"Not tonight," Landry says wearily. "They went to court about it."

"You said it was a real nice place," she says. "Nicer than there, you told me. When can we go?"

"Soon," Landry says. "I'll take you to that nice place soon." He pulls out his phone and calls someone. "Yeah. It's me. She got an injunction."

Mulder shakes his head. "Not the tidiest of solutions."

"It worked," Dross says. "She got what she wanted for now."

"And now there's a bus and a crowd in the road," Mulder says.

Dross shrugs. "That's situation normal around here."

Mulder chuckles softly. "So what now?"

"Someone will call the cops, get everybody moved along," Dross says.

"Aren't you the cops?" Mulder teases. 

"I'm off duty," Dross jokes back. He peers over Mulder's shoulder. "What is that?"

Mulder turns. "What?"

"I don't remember that deep a shadow on that wall," Dross says. 

"That's not a shadow," Mulder says slowly. "That's spray paint."

They walk over, that slow rolling casing walk that gives them time to take in every detail. On the red brick wall of one of the buildings that Landry and his compatriots are trying so hard to restore, someone has painted a taller than life-size mural of a somewhat menacing figure. The Band-Aid Nose Man, neatly rendered in shades of black and grey. 

\+ + + + 

At the hospital, Scully is waiting. Her shoes are on the floor, but her feet are pulled up into the chair. She's sitting like a teenager as she holds her mother's hand and tries not to cry. She's turned Dr. Colquitt away twice. There's no way she'll let him do this without her brother here. He's the only family she's got left, it seems. Finally Bill walks in, what's left of his hair still damp. 

"I slept a little longer than I wanted to," he says defensively. He never could handle being wrong, even when it was only in his mind. Scully just gives him a weary smile.

"I knew you'd be tired," she says. 

"Any change?" he asks, like she's his subordinate. That's the way he's always talked. She's too tired to snap at him tonight. 

"No," she says. "No change." 

"So it's time to take her off the ventilator?" Bill asks. "What will that do?"

Scully lifts one shoulder. "If she's strong enough, she'll keep breathing on her own. If she's not, she won't."

"What does that mean?" Bill demands.

"Obviously she needs oxygen," Scully says. "If she stops breathing, after a few minutes, things will start to shut down. There's potential for brain damage. Other effects."

"And there's nothing we can do?" Bill asks, bracing his hands on the bedside table.

"We can't speak to her and we can't speak for her," Scully says. "Her express wishes are that she not be on this kind of life support."

Bill straightens up. "Call the doctor, then," he says.

"He'll be around," Scully tells him. "If I were you, I'd use this time to say goodbye. I know that's what I wanted when I was dying."

"She could live through this," Bill says firmly.

"She could," Scully says. "But you and I both know she's not as strong as she used to be. I don't think she would have asked for Charlie unless...unless she felt like there wouldn't be another chance."

"I called him," Bill says. "Went to voicemail. I told him to call you."

Scully unfolds herself from the chair and slips her feet back into her shoes. "I'll go find Dr. Colquitt. You take a moment with her." He nods and eases himself into the chair. Scully wonders if he takes heart at the fact that their mother's hand is warm. Really it's the warmth of her own hand, her blood lending its heat to the body that gave it life. There's a symmetry to that, beautiful in the way that so many tragedies are beautiful.

"Dana," Bill says as she takes a step toward the doors of the ward. She stops and turns toward him. "Thanks."

She doesn't look for Dr. Colquitt immediately. She walks past the nurses and calls Mulder. 

"Back in the day," she says when he picks up, "did we ever come across the ability to just...wish someone back to life? To will them to open their eyes and breathe on their own?"

"I invented it," he tells her in a voice that makes her eyes prickle with tears and her knees soften. "When you were in the hospital, after Duane Barry. I sat there smelling the flowers that Frohike brought and I called out until the universe answered."

"You're a dark wizard, Mulder," she says. 

"What else is new?" he says quietly, and she hears the worry in his voice. 

Her phone buzzes and she checks the screen. A call from an unknown number.

"I've got to take this," she says. "I love you."

She switches calls quickly. "Hello?"

"Hey, Dana," Charlie says.

"Charlie," she says. "You got Bill's message?"

"Yeah," he says. "I got a new number."

"I'm in the hospital," she says, turning and walking back toward the cardiac ward. "I'm with Mom and Bill. She...she asked for you. She had a heart attack. She's not conscious."

"Bill told me," he says.

"Charlie, I..." she says. "I don't know what happened. I don't know why we never speak anymore. But I know she loves you. We all love you."

"I'll tell you sometime," he says. "It's a story that I'd rather tell in person."

"Are you coming now?" she says. 

"I can't," he tells her. 

Dr. Colquitt is walking through the ward. Scully motions at him and he follows her to her mother's bedside.

"Mr. Scully," he says. "Are we ready to extubate?"

Bill nods. A nurse who isn't Taillie comes to stand at Dr. Colquitt's side - his nametag says "Solero". There's a resident too, looking slightly nervous in her white coat. Her nametag says "Gupta". 

"You have a stent on hand?" Dr. Colquitt asks.

Solero nods. "Removing the tube."

"On her next exhale," Dr. Colquitt says as Gupta approaches. She takes a deep breath. Scully tightens her lips. She gives Gupta a small nod. She remembers how that felt.

"They're taking her off the ventilator," she tells Charlie.

"Sounds like a tough situation," he says.

"It is," she tells him. "And I can't bring her back, Charlie. I don't know what to do."

"You're the one who always knows what to do," Charlie tells her. "You and Bill."

"Not anymore," she says. "Maybe not ever. Help me. Help Mom. I don't know if anything can bring her back to us now but...she was asking for you."

"Ready?" Gupta says.

They extubate Maggie. The breathing tube unspools from her mother's throat, slick and slack. The warmth of her mother's body will have made the plastic more flexible, Scully knows. 

"Talk to her," she says to Charlie, and puts the phone on speaker.

"Mom?" he says, his voice distorted. "Mom, it's me. It's Charlie. Dana and Bill said you were asking for me, so...so I'm here. Maybe not on time, but I've never been on time. You know that. I don't know what you want to know or what you need from me right now, but I'm here."

"Mom, can you hear him?" Scullly says into her mother's ear. "It's Charlie. He's on the phone. I know you can hear him. Just tell him whatever you need to say. Or tell us, and we can tell him. What does the necklace mean? What do you need?"

"Mom, it's me," Charlie says. "Any reaction?"

"Her pulse went up," Bill says, looking at the machine that's tracking their mother's vitals. "I didn't see her move, but that's something."

Maggie's eyelids flutter as her eyes move under them. Scully gasps, and Maggie opens her eyes, staring up. 

"She opened her eyes," Scully narrates. "Mom? Can you hear me? Can you hear Charlie?"

"Come back, Mom," Charlie says. "I've got things I still need to say to you."

"It looks like she's looking around, but I don't know if she's really seeing us," Scully tells him.

"Do you know where you are?" Bill asks, leaning over her. "Do you know your name?"

She smiles and closes her eyes. 

"Dana?" Charlie says. "What's going on?"

"She closed her eyes again," Scully says, her body sagging. "That's all."

"She smiled a little," Bill says. 

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything," Scully tells him.

"Well, it isn't gas, Dana," Bill says angrily. 

"Could I reach you again at this number?" Scully asks Charlie.

"Yeah," he says. "Call me if anything changes."

"I will," she tells him. 

Bill bends over their mother. "Is that all?" he demands of Dr. Colquitt, who is somehow still standing there. 

"We can't know how much longer she has," Dr. Colquitt says. Scully hopes that Gupta, standing at his elbow, isn't learning her bedside manner from him. "Sometimes a reaction like that is a sign of recovery. Sometimes it's completely meaningless."

"That's not very helpful," Bill says.

Dr. Colquitt grimaces. "Unfortunately, that's all I can tell you. We'll continue to give her the best care that we can. Whether or not she recovers isn't up to us."

"Who is it up to?" Bill demands. "Her? God? Fate?"

"Maybe some combination of those," Dr. Colquitt says. "We don't always know why patients recover or don't recover, especially after an event as severe as this one. But her living will seems to make it clear that she's prepared for this, whatever happens. She's given some consideration to it."

"Go to hell," Bill says. Dr. Colquitt smiles blandly.

"I'll check in again later," he says. 

Scully calls Mulder back.

"Everything okay?" he says. 

"They took her off the ventilator," Scully says. "She opened her eyes."

"That's a good sign?" Mulder says.

"It might be," Scully tells him.

"I'll be back in the morning," Mulder says. "Something came up here. Nancy Huff, the school board president, was killed in her home. We're pulling the footage from her home security cameras. She managed to set off an alarm before she was killed, but whoever did it pulled her apart and stuffed her into the trash compactor."

"Gruesome," Scully says.

"And a little on the nose," Mulder says. "I wonder if our killer was interrupted before, if Cutler would have ended up in the dumpster otherwise."

"Treat people like trash, end up in the trash," Scully murmurs. "There's no denying it's a poignant message. How's your search?"

"For the Band-Aid Nose Man?" Mulder asks. "Fruitless for now. We did find another mural tonight, on a wall near where Landry was trying to corral people onto a bus so he could take them away in the night. Street cleaning - isn't that what Cutler called it?"

"So dehumanizing," Scully says. "No wondering people are dying."

Bill shoots her a look. She turns away.

"Bill still there?" Mulder asks. 

"Yeah," she says. "It's good, though, I think."

"Did you ever reach Charlie?" Mulder asks.

"That's who called earlier when I was talking to you," she says.

"I'm doing my best to shout to the universe," he says. "But I don't know if my voice carries all the way from Philly."

"It does," she says. "I should get some sleep."

"I'll see you tomorrow," he says. "I'd say give Kismet a pat for me, but I guess he's still at the vet."

"Boarding him was a good idea," Scully says. "I don't have the energy right now to focus on a dog. On the other hand, he might be a welcome distraction."

"I'd say we could go spring him from the joint tomorrow," Mulder says. "But with these new developments, the case will probably last a few more days. We have a possible second killer to find and we need to bring in whoever's painting the murals, plus we need to figure out why the first one disappeared. I never did get onto that roof."

"Yeah," she says. "He's better off there. Hopefully, I'll be able to go back to Philadelphia with you."

"Scully, no," he says. "You should be with your mom."

"If she's stabilized," she says. "Bill is here. It's not important that I'm here every minute." 

"It might be," he says quietly. "I know you know that."

She sighs. "I miss you."

"I know," he says. "I'll see you in the morning. Get some rest."

She hangs up, sighs, and drives home. The house feels empty without Kismet and Mulder, but it's better than the hospital. She eats something out of the fridge and doesn't remember what it was by the time she's through brushing her teeth. Astoundingly, she sleeps, and doesn't wake up until her alarm rings. A shower and a large cup of coffee later, she's on her way back to the hospital. 

"How is she?" she asks Bill.

"Mostly the same," Bill says. "She's, uh, opened her eyes a few more times, but she hasn't really said anything." 

"That's good," Scully says. "Potentially."

Bill yawns. "I'm gonna get some sleep." He stretches. "I've fallen asleep in this chair about five times. Bad for the neck."

"Yeah," Scully says. "I get it."

He gives her a quick hug. Startled, she hugs him back. They're not a family that's been historically prone to a lot of physical affection. At least, the men of the family aren't.

"Call me if anything changes," he tells her.

She nods. "I will."

The chair is still warm. She sits at her mother's side, pulls the coin necklace out of her pocket, and takes her mother's hand. 

"Mom," she says softly, "I'm here."

After an hour of watching the nurses bustle around on their rounds, she glances up and sees Mulder. He looks crisp and put-together in his suit. 

"Hey," he says. "Brought you breakfast." He hands her a bag with a bagel in it. "Real cream cheese. I promise."

"Thank you," she says. "I wasn't really hungry."

"I get it," he says. "But you need to take care of yourself, Scully, and since everything is a little much right now and that's not your strong suit, I'm here to help out. Eat your breakfast." 

She eats, one hand dipping ripped-off chunks of the bagel into the cream cheese, the other still holding her mother's hand. Mulder pulls over another chair and sits facing her, his knees brushing hers. He leans forward and lifts the coin necklace from her lap.

"Did you solve the mystery?" he asks.

"No," she says, swallowing a mouthful of bagel. "And I probably never will." 

"Don't give up, Scully," he says. "We've had our share of miracles."

"That's what I'm worried about," she says. "I'm afraid we've used up our ration."

"You know I'm not a big believer," he tells her, "but I don't think that's how he works."

"I don't know anymore," she says. 

"Finish your bagel," he says. "Everything looks brighter on a full stomach."

She laughs bleakly, but she finishes her bagel and she does feel a little better. But her mother's still lying there, her breathing slightly labored, and though it isn't the eerie regularity of the ventilator, somehow that hitch doesn't comfort Scully as much as she'd like.

"Maybe if you give her the necklace," Mulder muses, staring into space.

"Put it around her neck?" Scully asks. "I don't think the staff would appreciate that."

"No, just in her hand," Mulder says.

"I suppose it can't hurt," Scully says. Mulder dangles the coin on its chain and she cups her palm to receive it. He lets the delicate links waterfall against her skin. Scully takes her mother's hand and turns it up so that she can tuck the coin into her mother's fingers. For good measure, she takes off her cross necklace and lets it clink against the coin. She folds Maggie's fingers carefully over the jewelry. 

"So what now?" she asks Mulder. She can hear how weak and watery her voice is. She knows she shouldn't have been hoping for an instant miracle, but some part of her had been longing for her mother to open her eyes immediately at the touch of the metal. 

"Now we wait," he says. "And we hope. Honestly, waiting and hoping is the biggest part of dark wizardry. Not a lot of people know that."

She huffs, half a laugh. It's all she can summon. He laces his fingers through hers and puts his other hand on top of her hand on Maggie's hand. 

"Your faith," Mulder says. "It's always sustained you. It's gotten you through some dark times. It's pulled me out of some dark places. I believe in your faith, Scully. I know your mother does too."

She smiles at him. 

The machine next to her mother's bed beeps a little faster. Scully glances up. Her mother's pulse has quickened. 

"Mom?" she says in a voice that wavers.

"Maggie," Mulder says, sounding steady as a rock. Some part of her is momentarily grateful for all they've been through, that he has the experience to handle this situation, but most of her mourns. This should blindside them. This should be the worst thing that's ever happened to them. 

"We're here," Mulder continues. "We're here for you."

"Bill went to go sleep for a little while, Mom," Scully tells her, "but I'm here, and...and Fox is here, and...." She takes a deep breath. "William's here, Mom. He's missed you so much." 

They wait. Scully feels the rhythm of her breath matching her mother's. After what feels like an eternity, her mother's eyes open.

"Mom," she breathes. 

"Maggie, we're here," Mulder says. 

Maggie looks at him blearily. Her eyes focus and she smiles. "My son..." she says, "My son is named William too." 

Scully exhales slowly, smiling. "Mom," she says lovingly. "Do you know where you are?"

Maggie's eyes slide over to her. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She smiles and sighs.

"Mom, it's Dana," Scully says, trying not to cry. "I'm here."

"Dana," Maggie says, or maybe it's all in Scully's imagination, because it's barely a breath. Maggie's eyes droop closed. 

"Mom, come back to us," Scully says. "I don't know what this necklace means. I don't know how to get through this without you, and I know...I know that's ironic, but please, Mom. I'm here. Stay here with us." She fumbles her phone out of her pocket and scrolls through her recent contacts for the strange number that Charlie called from. He answers, yawning.

"Dana? Everything okay?"

"She opened her eyes," Scully whispers. "I don't know what it means."

"Is Bill there?" Charlie asks.

"No, he went back to the hotel," Scully tells him. 

"Call him," Charlie tells her. "And then call me back."

She does. "Bill, her eyes are open."

"I'll be there as soon as I can," he says.

"Hold on, Mom," Scully says. "Charlie?"

"I'm here," he says on speaker. "Mom. I'm here."

They sit there, a tableau of hope and grief. Maggie opens her eyes again. Her fingers tighten faintly around the coin and the cross in her palm. 

"Mom?" Scully says. 

"Mom," Charlie says. 

Maggie breathes out slowly. Her eyes close. The monitor beeps faster, then slower, then faster again, and then there's one continuous tone that sounds to Scully's ears like a howl or a siren. 

"Dana, what's happening?" Charlie says urgently. 

"She's flatlining," Scully says, and then she shouts it. "She's flatlining!" Suddenly, there are doctors everywhere. Scully drops the phone. She cradles her mother's face between her hands. 

"Mom," she says, half-sobbing. "Mom, stay with us." 

"Ma'am, I need you to step back," says one of the nurses, and Scully, numb, does as she's asked. Mulder puts his hands on her shoulders. The doors to the ward burst open and Bill skids through them.

"Mom?" he says. 

"Mom," Scully sobs. 

"I'm sorry," the nurse tells them. "There's nothing we can do."

Scully turns her face into Mulder's chest and sobs and sobs until his shirt is soaked. His arms are strong around her.

"I don't understand," Bill says over and over. 

Two attendants roll a gurney over. The clatter of the wheels rattles in Scully's brain.

"No," she says, lunging for her mother's hand. She holds it tight between both of hers. "No! Get that out of here."

"What is that?" Bill demands. "What is that for?"

"Scully," Mulder says gently, rubbing her back. "She's an organ donor. She told me once, when you were in the hospital, when we were talking about what to do if you didn't wake up. They need her right away. You know that."

"I know," she chokes out. She unfolds her mother's fingers and retrieves the necklaces, the coin and the cross. Mulder gently pulls her away and wraps his arms around her, hiding her face against him so she doesn't have to watch the attendants move her mother's body to the gurney. 

"Her last words to us were about William," she says, her voice still catching in her throat. "Our child. Her grandchild. Why did she say that?"

"You told her he was there, Scully," Mulder reminds her, his lips mumbling against her hair. "Of course he was on her mind. He's always on all of our minds. You know that."

"Why did she have to say that?" she sobs. 

He just rubs her back and holds her close. Finally she steps away. Bill is standing there looking lost. 

"I guess..." he says slowly, "I guess I'll go back to the hotel."

"Get some rest," Mulder says sympathetically. 

"Yeah," Bill says. 

Scully watches him walk away. She dries her eyes with the back of her hands. "Where's the car?"

"What?" Mulder says. 

"Let's drive to Philadelphia," she says. "I need to work."

"No," he says. "Scully, no. You need time."

"Right now," she says. "If we leave now, we can be there by noon. We'll still have a few hours to work the case."

"I get it, Scully," he says. "I do. But not right now."

"Mulder, right now," she says. "I need to work right now."

"Remember Boggs?" he asks gently.

"I solved that case," she says. 

"Yeah, but you almost broke down," Mulder says. "And I ended up in the hospital." 

"Enough hospitals," she says. "Let's go."

"I don't know if that's the best idea," he says. "Maybe you should call your therapist?"

"I'll see her when we wrap this case," Scully says. "Please. I need to do something besides sit here and relive the last hour over and over." 

"All right," he says, his eyes softening. "Let's go."


	5. Chapter 5

She spends the entire drive to Philadelphia staring out the window as tears roll down her cheeks. She isn't even actively crying, just leaking. Lachrymose. Lagrimosa. If she were a statue, it would be a miracle. She wishes she were a statue. 

At the lab, Mulder introduces her to the lab techs. She smiles politely, eyes dry at last, but she can't remember their names, even when she looks at their nametags. She has one hand in her pocket, worrying the coin necklace like a talisman, and her phone in the other hand, waiting for Bill to call. Their mother may be dead, but her life isn't over. There will be loose ends to tie up, certificates to file, legal documents to be read and analyzed. Her body was, in some ways, the least significant part of her existence, until it failed. It's a lesson Scully has learned over and over as a forensic pathologist. 

"I broke down the paint samples you chipped away from the Trashman's signature," says one of the scientists, gesturing at an expensive-looking machine. "I used vibrational spectography to analyze it. It defines binders, pigments, and additives that are in spray paint. The binder present in this breakdown was patented by a brand called Cannonz - that's with a z - and used only in their high-end spray paints."

Scully Googles it. Cannonz with a z makes a lot of spray paint, but when she puts in Philadelphia, the results narrow. "Product locator indicates there's only one store in Central Philadelphia that carries it," she announces. 

"Then it's time for a visit," Mulder says, and they're off. The forward motion feels good. It feels productive. When she's still, her insides churn and her mind slips inevitably back to the hospital. 

"You want to stake out the store?" Mulder asks. 

She opens her mouth to say yes, please, let me work, but then reconsiders. The few times she's been in a hardware store, she's been too noticeable. Men assume she doesn't know what she wants, or that she's a DIY blogger, or that one way or another, she needs their attention. It'll be better if Mulder does it and she stays in the car. 

"No," she says. "It's a little conspicuous. Better if I drive." 

"Okay," he says. 

\+ + + + 

Mulder lurks in the hardware store, pretending to look at sandpaper and paint. It's easy and absorbing to flip through the paint chips. Maybe they should redo the bedroom. He hasn't, since she moved back in. Maybe it's time for a new look to go with the reboot of their old life. Something to signify that the times have really changed. They've never really lived anywhere that had color on the walls. 

He knows she's right and she would be conspicuous. A beautiful woman in a suit in a hardware store is unlikely to be an everyday occurrence, especially one who occasionally weeps in an understated and elegant way that breaks hearts. As far as he's concerned, she's always the center of attention. 

Movement catches his eye. There's a young man by the spray paint. He knocks cans of Cannonz Premium into his basket: black, light grey, dark grey, white. There's no hesitation in his movement. Mulder follows him, walking casually with his fistful of paint chips, moving toward the front of the store. The kid looks back over his shoulder. Mulder detours down another aisle, glancing at a display of fans. When he catches up again, the kid has ditched his basket of paint and is headed for the front door. Mulder trails him. He follows the kid out the front door at a reasonable difference. Scully's in the car. Her head is bent, looking at something she's holding, probably the necklace her mother will never get a chance to explain. He whistles, wishing he didn't have to, and her head snaps up. She shifts out of park and follows him.

Mulder runs, wishing he wasn't wearing dress shoes. Scully catches up to him and pulls over a hundred feet away. He flings open the door and climbs into the passenger's seat. 

"That way," he says, panting. They run the kid to ground at a warehouse in a fenced-off wooded lot. Mulder jumps out of the car and regrets it as his knee twinges. Some parts of them are getting too old for this. But he glimpses the kid and takes off in pursuit, Scully close behind him. They clamber through a hole in the chain-link fence. The kid stops to unlock a door. He's polite for a vandal and potential murderer.

"Federal agents!" Mulder calls, just as the kid gets the door open and vanishes through it. Mulder shares a look with Scully and they go in. It's dim inside the warehouse, like most of the warehouses he's been in, but his reflexes are still sharp and he reaches for his weapon almost without thinking as he sees the kid draw a gun. Scully has the kid in a headlock almost before either of them can react. He wonders if she took up jujitsu in the time they were apart. She's impressive. Then again, she always was. She hands him the kid's gun and cuffs the kid.

"We're looking for the Trashman," Mulder says.

The kid sighs. "Why would I know where he is?"

"You had the paint," Mulder tells him. 

"Is it a crime to buy paint?" the kid snarks.

"No, but it's a crime to deface other people's property," Scully says. 

"With the same paint the Trashman uses," Mulder points out. 

"Why are you looking for him?" the kid asks.

"We believe he may be a key witness in a murder case," Scully says, looking at Mulder. 

"There might be compensation in it for the person who could help us find him," Mulder says.

"Lead with that next time," the kid grumbles. "You want the Trashman? Take the cuffs off and I'll take you to him."

"How do we know we can trust you?" Scully asks. 

"You're the ones with the guns," the kid says. 

She raises her eyebrow at Mulder. He shrugs. They've had this discussion more times than he can count. It hasn't needed to be verbalized for decades. The potential reward outweighs the risk. He's pretty sure Scully could throw this kid. She uncuffs him and the kid rubs his wrist.

"We kept our end," Mulder says.

"Right this way," the kid says, like a sarcastic maitre d'. He leads them through the warehouse to another door that he unlocks with his jingling ring of keys. There are stairs dimly visible beyond it. The kid points down to them. Mulder pulls out his phone and turns on the flashlight. He should have brought a real one. There were years when he never went anywhere without a flashlight. The one on his phone is brighter, but harder to balance across his gun. Twenty-first century skills.

"I'm just letting you know," the kid says, "from here on down, there's no light. Power's out."

"Crime doesn't pay the bills," Mulder jokes. The kid pretends to laugh. The three of them start to ease down the stairs. It's dark, but the stairs seem to be in good condition, and they're even. The light from their phones casts dizzying shadows around their feet, but that's something Mulder can deal with. He spent decades in the shadows. When they're what must be most of the way down, the kid shoves them suddenly into the wall and pelts back up the stairs. Mulder sighs. Scully shoots him a sideways glare.

"What?" he says. "I wasn't going to shoot him. He's a kid and it's dark. You want to do the stairs, be my guest. I'm too old for that shit."

She rolls her eyes. "Mulder, back in the day, I used to do stairs in three-inch heels."

He glances at her feet and shines his phone at them. "'Back in the day', huh. Three inches not enough for you anymore?"

She rolls her eyes again. 

"Go for it, G-Woman," he tells her. 

"I'm not leaving you alone in the dark," she says. 

"By all means, ladies first," he tells her, making a sweeping gesture. She comes down the last few stairs and steps onto the warehouse basement floor. They make their halting way across it, but the floor is mostly clear. It's the dark that's the danger. The light washes it away, but it flows back around them as they move. Mulder's shoulders tense. There's something down here, or someone; he knows it with a certainty he can't shake. His nerves twang. Suddenly, there's a flicker of white at the edge of their pool of light. It freezes as the light touches it, and then flees, straight into a wall. It hits with a thud and falls to the ground. They run to catch up, but it's gone. There's only a pale puddle, a muddle of cloth. He nudges it with the toe of his shoe. It leaves a smudge.

"What the hell?" Scully says. 

Mulder shrugs, already proceeding. At the end of the corridor, there's a locked metal door. Mulder locks eyes with Scully and then bangs on the door with his fist, hoping his phone won't fly out. "Federal agents! Open up! If you're in danger, we're here to help."

"I am in danger," say a voice inside. It's a baritone, slightly raspy. "Go away."

Mulder glances at Scully. She nods. He kicks open the door, creaky knees be damned. He's just lucky this one opens in. He's made the mistake before of trying to kick in a door that opened out. They burst into the room like they're on a movie set. There's a statue in the middle, human-sized, of a human-shaped figure with a trash bag shirt and a Band-Aid on its nose. Mulder gets chills down his spine, remembering other statues with other faces inside them, wet clay plastered slashed-open faces, a muse like a demon that drove an old mentor to murder. He takes a step toward the statue.

"Put the guns down!" says the voice. "They don't work on them! Put them away! They don't work. I've tried. I've tried to shoot them."

Behind the statue, there's a man. He's hiding behind a shopping cart full of spray paint cans. The shadows stripe his face, cutting him into checkers. They aim at him, guns and lights trained toward him. 

"You the Trashman?" Mulder asks.

"Turn down the light, man," the Trashman says. "Turn down the light. If they don't see me and I don't see them, they can't hurt me."

"What's the opposite of hiding in the light?" Scully murmurs. She points her light toward the floor but holds her weapon steady. Mulder turns his flashlight off.

"Thanks, man," the Trashman says. "Hold on, I've got a candle. Candles aren't enough to attract them."

He straightens up from behind the cart, pulling himself up on the wire frame, and shuffles over toward a workbench. He strikes a match and lights three little candles. Scully reluctantly turns off her light, but she doesn't holster her weapon.

"We can place you near the scene of two different murders," Mulder says. "Why don't you explain that to us."

"The people on the streets - the homeless people, the street people - they ain't got no voice, right?" the Trashman says, leaning against the workbench. "They get treated like trash. I mean, actual trash. It's like this. You throw your grande cup or your Coke bottle in the right trash can under the sink - if it's recyclable, if it's not - you tie it in a bag, you take it outside, you put it in the right dumpster. You feel good about yourself. You saved the world, a little bit. Kept global warming at bay, spared a sea turtle or two. Garbage truck comes to take the trash away. One way or another, it's not your problem. Just like magic. But it is your problem, because it piles up in a landfill, or it gets floated out to sea on a barge, or it gets incinerated, and now there's toxins in the water and in the land and in the sky. But you don't see the problem, so there is no problem."

"Is someone incinerating the homeless population?" Scully asks.

"It's a metaphor," the Trashman says. "People treat people like trash, like if they can just sweep them somewhere else, there's no problem. They don't fix the problem. They just try to eliminate the symptoms."

"So you fixed the problem?" Mulder asks.

"I did my part," the Trashman says, some kind of pride in his voice.

"By killing Joseph Cutler and Nancy Huff?" Mulder asks.

"There were two art thieves too," the Trashman says. "The ones who stole the billboard. They've been taking my work for months, selling it to the people who cause the problem. That's why I switched to brick. Can't steal brick." He pushes a hand through his hair. "I was just trying to give those people a voice the only way I know how. Through art, not violence. I wanted something I could put around town so they wouldn't be forgotten. A stencil that looked over the Bad Suit Building Man, the Lawn Gnome Suburban Lady. A reminder for them. A stop sign."

"Why'd you put up the art after the fact?" Mulder demands. "We've got footage that shows that the graffiti on the billboard wasn't painted until the morning of Cutler's murder."

"I didn't do it," the Trashman protests. "That wasn't me. I made the stencil, but I didn't paint the billboard. I only thought him up, you know? Those people who got killed - that was him. Only him."

"Who, exactly, is him?" Scully asks.

"You saw those things in the hall," the Trashman says. "I heard you."

"Yeah," Mulder allows. 

"I made them," the Trashman says. "I didn't mean to, but I made 'em. They'll go away, eventually. They're kind of fading out, the less I think about it. But the Band-Aid Nose Man...he's different. He's got a life of his own."

Mulder turns to look at the statue. It doesn't move.

"Tibetan Buddhists would call him a Tulpa," the Trashman continues. "A thought form using mind and energy to will a consciousness into existence."

Mulder glances at Scully. Motor oil and coffee grounds, he thinks, red footprints staining the plush white carpet in a perfect suburban McMansion. "Tulpa is a 1929 Theosophist mistranslation of the Tibetan world 'tulku', meaning 'a manifestation body'," he says. "There is no idea in Tibetan Buddhism of a thought form or thought as form. And a realized tulku would never harm anyone. That's antithetical to the Buddhist tradition." 

"A thought form made of trash seems unlikely at best," Scully murmurs, and Mulder knows that she remembers it too.

"Okay," the Trashman says. "But Buddhist or philosophist or whatever, I'm telling you, I spend a lot of energy on my art. I meditated on it. I put all my energy into the Band-Aid Nose Man, and somehow, I willed it to become what the street people needed. Someone who didn't see them as trash. Someone willing to deal with the problem."

"That's a powerful wish," Scully says. 

"I thought about what I wanted him to look like, what I wanted him to be, and why I wanted him," the Trashman says, shuffling through a pile of papers. He holds up a sketch of the Band-Aid Nose Man, beaming like a proud parent, and Mulder feels a pang in his heart. He remembers Maggie holding up a photo of William like that. Their son, no less a miracle, no less a thought made form. They wished devoutly for him, prayed for him, and he was made flesh.

"I didn't bring him here," the Trashman says. "He came to me. I didn't expect him, but he told me what he wanted to be. What he wanted to do. All we do is hold the pencil, or the clay, or the words, or whatever the medium. I think there must be spirits and souls floating all around us. And if you think real hard or you want them so, so bad that you can't think of anything else...they come to you. They pass through you on their way to existence. And then they become alive with a life of their own."

Scully's breath hitches like a hiccup and Mulder knows she's thinking of William and of her parents, of the spirit she saw when her father died and of the way her mother slipped away.

"This is what came to me in my dreams," the Trashman says earnestly. "From some other place I can't fathom. It's more powerful than I even imagined. But now it's alive and it's out there, right down to the Band-Aid I used to hold the clay in place while it dried. Who would copy this? Who could? And did you smell it? It smells like nothing on this earth. It has its own life now. Does what it wants. Goes where it wants. I just wanted to scare anyone who took dignity away from the homeless, who treated them like trash. I just wanted them to know that fear. That's where the violent idea popped into my head. It was just an emotion, just a notion that went through my head while I was making it. They treat people like trash, so they should know what it feels like. But ideas are dangerous. Even small ones. It uses that violent thought now. It thinks that's what it's supposed to do. Put them in the trash."

Scully looks mesmerized. She shakes her head. "You are responsible," she says. "If you made the problem, if it was your idea...you're responsible for whatever destruction it causes. You put it out of sight, so that it wouldn't be your problem. But you're just as bad as the people you hate."

Mulder doesn't think the Trashman can hear the ache in her voice. He wants to tell her that their son was never a problem. But it isn't the moment, and he wasn't there. She's told him of the moving mobile, of the powers their son might have shown, of the danger inherent in those abilities. He can't believe that Scully's child would have used those powers to destroy or to harm, but he could believe it of his child. Maybe they called to the universe and a spirit answered, and they just didn't have the time to understand its purposes. Benign or malign, William is out of their life, but Mulder isn't sure if that kind of connection can ever be broken. He kept looking for Samantha. Maggie asked for Charlie. The act of creation is powerful. Maybe that tie can't be severed.

"If what you believe is possible," he says, returning to the Trashman, "the last person involved in the relocation would be Landry."

"He got the injunction lifted," the Trashman says. "He was bragging about it in front of the HUD office, letting everybody know. They're moving people out to Franklin Hospital tonight. There's signs posted and everything." 

"Don't leave the state," Scully says. "We may need to speak with you again."

The Trashman laughs. It's a hollow sound. "Got nowhere to go."

"That's what they all say before they run," Mulder says dryly. "I think we'd better bring you along with us." 

They take the candles as they climb back up the stairs. The Trashman seems convinced any more light will attract more of his ghouls, or tulpas, or whatever they are. They don't seem to have as much power as the Band-Aid Nose Man. Still, Mulder would rather avoid any delays. He gets out his phone and looks up the number for Landry's firm. The secretary, alarmed, gives him Landry's cell phone number, and Mulder dials quickly. 

"Mr. Landry," he says when his call goes to voicemail, "this is Agent Mulder with the FBI. I need you to call me back. It's urgent." 

Scully's on the phone with the Philly PD. "We're looking for Daryl Landry," she says as she opens the door and gestures the Trashman into the back seat. The GPS sends them on a convoluted route back to the HUD office. Mulder checks his watch. By the time they pull up in front of the office, the yellow school bus is gone, leaving only a cloud of diesel fumes. Scully, with a grim set to her mouth, puts Franklin Hospital in the GPS. 

"Just trash," the Trashman says. "That's what he thinks of them. Put them in the right bin and they'll disappear, like magic. Put them in the right bin and they'll be somebody else's problem."

"Thank you," Scully says. "Very helpful." 

The hospital is a big building, half of it lit in the dim of the evening. They run in through the doors, the Trashman behind them. 

"Landry?" Mulder bellows. "Where's Landry?"

"He took my dog," a man says. "He sent my dog to the shelter. I need my dog. I told him I wasn't coming if I couldn't have my dog."

"I tried to tell him," a woman says. "I tried, but he kept going."

"Which way did he go?" Scully demands.

The woman points. They clatter down the hall, dress shoes noisy on the tile. 

"Ugh!" Scully says. "That smell!"

"Like nothing on this earth," the Trashman says. "I told you."

There's a scream. They burst into a room. It's tiled, lined with showers, with benches down the middle. There's no exit except the one they came through. On the floor of one of the showers is a heap. That's the best way Mulder can describe it. The heap was a person until recently - that much is clear - but that person has been...disassembled. Next to the heap is a phone, blood splashed across the illuminated screen. 

"There's only one way out of this room," Scully says, easing forward, peering into the stalls. "He screamed just seconds ago. How did we not see whoever did this to him leave the room?" She scuffs her foot like there's something on her shoe. "Mulder," she says.

When she moves her foot, there's a Band-Aid stuck to the floor. 

"I told you," the Trashman says.

"How do we find him?" Mulder demands.

"How the hell would I know?" the Trashman says. "I didn't plan this. I didn't tell him to do it."

"Are you willing to say that in a sworn statement?" Mulder asks. 

"Yeah, man," the Trashman says. "Call me in."

"We can hold him overnight," Scully murmurs. "Talk to him in the morning." 

"Let's do it now," Mulder says. "There'll be somebody to talk to him at the police station. We'll turn him over to them." He looks at her. "Let's go home, Scully."

He sees the gleam of tears in her eyes. "Home," she says quietly. 

"Yeah," he says. "Let somebody else write the report. We'll fill in what details we can, but...." He shrugs. "It's an X-File. It's unexplainable. I'm learning when to let go."

"It's not easy," she whispers. 

"I know it's not," he says. 

"Are you letting me go?" the Trashman asks.

"No," Mulder says. He picks up his phone. "Can I speak to Detective Dross? We've got a situation out at the Franklin Hospital that relates to his case." 

They wait at the old hospital until Dross shows up, fielding questions about dogs and when people will be able to go back to their usual spots. The Trashman seems calm. Maybe the Band-Aid Nose Man's murder spree is over, the violent notion having run its course. Maybe the Trashman's a sociopath. Either way, they're turning over the case. Someone else can run the truth down to its burrow. He's taking Scully home to their own house, where she can cry her eyes out in peace, and he can hold her in his arms and cry too for a kind woman who held him close when no one else understood what he might lose. 

\+ + + + 

The funeral is sweet, but short. Bill gives a speech. It's surprisingly gentle. Scully gives a speech too. She stands at the lectern, hands braced on the sides. 

"Mom was always there for me when I needed her," she says, keeping her voice deliberate and low. "She was always there for all of us, no matter how far away we went. And I know that she's still here for us. For her children, her grandchildren, and all of us. Her heart...her heart was so big. And I'm going to miss her so much."

"You should take the ashes," Bill says at the end. "You knew her the best. You were at Dad's funeral. Just take them to the same place."

"I will," she says. 

Mulder holds out his hand. "Sorry to see you under these circumstances," he says.

Bill, after a moment, reaches out and shakes hands. "Maybe next time there will be better ones." 

"Let's hope so," Mulder says. 

"I've got to get to the airport," Bill says. "I couldn't take any more time away. But I know you'll do the right thing."

"Thank you," Scully says. 

Bill hugs her, a little stiffly. She hugs him back. 

"I wish Charlie had come," she says.

"It's a little far," Bill says. 

"I know," she tells him. "Still. You made it in from Germany."

"You of all people should know that Charlie's different," Bill says. 

"Melissa was different," she says, her words curling into each other with remembered affection. "Charlie's just...Charlie." 

"You're all different," Bill says. "I guess we're all different. But you're the one who went the farthest, Dana." 

She scoffs. "I'm the one who stayed home." 

"Not physically," he says. "You're the only one who did the unexpected."

She draws back a little. "Bill, I don't know what to say."

"I was a little envious," he says. "We all were." He hugs her again. "Take care of yourself, Dana."

"You too," she says. "Give my love to Tara and the boys."

"I will," he says. 

She looks at Mulder helplessly. He shrugs very slightly and hands her a handkerchief as Bill strolls away. She picks up the urn.

"Where are we going?" Mulder says, pulling out his keys. 

"I'll tell you on the way," she says. 

They drive to the beach where Scully once watched her father's ashes being scattered. She cues up "Beyond The Sea" on her phone as they tip Maggie's ashes into the waves. 

"We should have gotten a boat," Mulder says.

"It's all right," Scully says. "Mom always liked to stay close to shore." They sit on a log and watch the waves wash up and over the sand, distributing the dark smudge. 

"I know she's still with you, Scully," Mulder says, putting a gentle arm around her shoulders.

"She is," she says. She sighs. "I've been thinking about thought forms."

"I thought we agreed that the thought form was a stretch at best," he says.

"I know now why Mom asked for Charlie, even though he was out of her life," she says. "She wanted to know before he left that he'd be okay. She gave birth to him. She made him. In a way, isn't that a thought given form? He was her responsibility. And that's why she said what she said to us."

"We gave him form," Mulder says softly. "William." 

"Didn't we?" she says. "We wished for him. Mulder, we wished for him so hard. Maybe that's how he came into the world. And she wanted to know that we were okay, that he was okay." 

"I'm sure he's okay," Mulder says. "You made sure of that."

"We gave him up to keep him safe," Scully says. "But I can't help but think of him, Mulder. I can't help it."

"Neither can I," he says. 

"I'm so happy that we're back on the X-Files," she says. "I knew I would miss it, but I didn't know how much. And I believe we will find the answers to the mysteries we're seeking, side by side." She turns to him. "But our mysteries - some of them can never be answered. I won't know if he thinks of us, or if he's ever been afraid and wished that I was there, the way I wished for my mom so many times. Does he know that he's adopted? Does he doubt that we love him? I have this necklace, this quarter, and I have so many questions, and I'm sure I'll only have more as we go through her effects. Does he have questions? Does he look in the mirror and see us?" 

"I'm sure he knows that he's loved," Mulder says. "By us, by his parents. By everyone who knows him, probably."

Her voice falters. "I just have to believe...Mulder, I have to believe we didn't treat him like trash. Our son, Mulder."

He pulls her against his shoulder and she bursts into tears.

"You didn't have a choice," he says as she sobs, her tears soaking into his lapel. "Scully, he knows. You did the right thing. When you meet him, that won't be a mystery." She feels his lips mumble against her hair. "He'll know how hard we wished for him, how wanted and cherished and treasured he was. He couldn't not know that, seeing you."

She cries until she can't cry anymore, and it helps, as much as anything could, and then they go home.


End file.
